luvtoread

Synopsis: Young red-haired orphan Anne Shirley is brought to Green Gables, Prince Edward Island to live with siblings Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert. Despite Matthew and Marilla initially wanting a boy to help with the farm, they fall in love with Anne and keep her. Anne grows from young girl to young woman finding friendship and pitfalls along the way.

Review: What a beautiful book! Anne of Green Gables is perhaps one of the best books I’ve ever read, and I absolutely loved it. It was romantic, it was atmospheric, and it was a positive book that everyone should read. It is so refreshing to read a book that is so positive, and I really needed that affirmation about humanity with all of the negativity around lately.

Anne Shirley is our main character, and she is a talkative dreamer that comes to Green Gables in Avonlea, Prince Edward Island, and changes the people around her. She goes to live with siblings Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert, who initially wanted a boy, but Anne arrives and instantly connects with Matthew, and changes their lives forever.

I loved Matthew and Anne’s relationship, and also Anne and Marilla’s relationship. Matthew is so shy around girls and women, and Anne helps him come out of his shell a bit. Marilla is uptight and seemingly cold, but still waters run deep, and they have a lasting friendship. Anne also finds a “bosom friend” in neighbor Diana Barry, and their friendship is the stuff of legend.

Along the way Anne gets into humorous scrapes, and even though I’ve seen the miniseries many, many times, I was still laughing and caught up in the romance and atmosphere of Avonlea.

L.M. Montgomery’s writing is near perfection. This book has so many great quotes, about life and nature, and I feel like I need to buy a Kindle version of the book so I can easily find all of the lovely quotes that are in the book. Montgomery is very descriptive in her writing, and the scenery jumps to life, and you really feel you are wandering by the Lake of Shining Waters, or staring out at the trees, or listening to the rippling brook nearby. I absolutely loved the atmosphere, and wish I lived at Green Gables!

I haven’t spoken yet about a certain someone named Gilbert Blythe, and I adore his and Anne’s relationship. I don’t want to say too much in case you’ve never read the book, but this relationship is funny and real, and oh-so-romantic. I can’t wait to read the next books in the series to see how the relationship progresses!

Bottom Line: Absolutely beautiful and full of dreams. A must read.

Some of my favorite quotes:

• “Isn’t it splendid to think of all the things there are to find out about? It just makes me feel glad to be alive – it’s such an interesting world. It wouldn’t be half so interesting if we knew all about everything, would it? There’d be no scope for imagination then, would there?”

• “My life is a perfect graveyard of buried hopes.”

• “I cannot tie myself down to anything so unromantic as dishwashing at this thrilling moment.”

• “It’s so splendid to see the morning coming up over those long hills and glowing through those sharp fir tops. It’s new every morning, and I feel as if I washed my very soul in that bath of earliest sunshine.”

Have you read Anne of Green Gables? Have you read all of the Anne books?